Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the U.S. Ronald Sanders recently stated settling the 14-year trade dispute with the U.S. over online gambling could help the islands recover from Hurricane Irma. “We feel a little disadvantaged by this process. We’ve been trying very hard over 14 years to get the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office to reach a reasonable settlement with us. If they were going to do it, there would be no better time than now to allow us to rebuild our country on the basis of money which we have lost because of the United States’ action and which has been arbitrated fairly and squarely and legally in our country’s favor.”
The dispute between the Caribbean islands and the U.S. began in the 2000s, when the U.S. launched a crackdown on online gambling and implemented the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in 2006, which impacted Antigua and Barbuda’s iGaming industry.
Antigua filed a complaint in the World Trade Organization claiming the U.S. violated its GATS commitment to free trade in recreational services. The WTO ruled in favor of Antigua, awarding it the right to suspend $21 million annually in intellectual property rights held by U.S. firms.
A report by the United States International Trade Commission said, “This dispute exemplifies the potential for market access commitments to have unexpected and undesirable consequences. The potential for suspending intellectual property rights as a retaliatory measure may increase the leverage of small countries in trade disputes with large countries, but the implementation and management of such a suspension may be difficult and costly.”
